


Tattoo Timeless

by WarriorOmen



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, F/F, Flashbacks, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Hurt and comfort, M/M, Modern Setting, Mortal Andy, Post-Movie, Reunion, Romance, Tattoo, Tattoos, historical setting, immortal squad, sensual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:35:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28462503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarriorOmen/pseuds/WarriorOmen
Summary: Andy gets a tattoo, reflects, and reunion is on the horizon.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 8
Kudos: 59





	Tattoo Timeless

“Just want to double-check, Q-u-y-n-h, yes?”

Andy glanced down at her wrist, nodding, “Yeah, yeah that’s it. And there’s an…yeah, there.”

“Quỳnh?”

Andy nodded, leaning back in the chair, “Right.”

“Alright, I’m going to start, let me know anytime you want me to stop.”

She nodded but didn’t give much by the way of a verbal response, worrying that if she did, she’d end up talking herself out of it all over again.

It was silly, really, but if she was going to be mortal now, then well.

Why not?

The buzz of the gun, the pinpricks on her skin, the burning pain in her veins fades to long lost memories that never lose clarity nor colour.

\--

Joe notices first.

She’s not surprised, because she had been making zero attempt to hide it, the bandaging clear, but visible at her left wrist. And what had begun as a question of worry fades to something so immeasurably sad Andy draws him into her chest before she’s really thinking of it. Half-out of her chair, perched precariously on the edge.

He’s kneeling, bracketed by her legs, head firm to her chest, her own hand cradling the back of his neck and the base of his skull.

However long they sit there, saying nothing, eludes her. Until Joe shuffles back far enough he can pick her wrist up, gingerly, like he’s worried of breaking it. Absurd, and any other time she’d retort about being made of glass.

But it’s more than that, and his fingers hover millimetres from the bandage before he draws back.

“You can.” Her voice sounds raw, alien to herself.

“I’d irritate it.” His own no better.

\--

When Nicky sees it later that night, he stops, swallows, and makes to turn. Like he’s intruded on something private and doesn’t want to invade. But Andy won’t let him get any further, sliding the handle of the wooden spoon he’d put down between one of the loops on his pants and pulling him in, letting him see it, holding her wrist beneath the light hovering over the kitchen counter.

Side-by-side, Andy slips the spoon free, lets him take her hand, lets him look at it in wonder. A veritable antique under a scrutiny of a magnifying glass, it feels.

Like Joe, he makes to touch it, and like Joe, he draws his own fingers back as though burned, though keeps her hand, palm-up in his other.

As before, she says,

“You can.”

Unsurprisingly, he shakes his head.

“It has to heal.”

That’s what they knew, and what the artist had told Andy. But she knows better and knows Nicky does too.

Doing this, those old begotten memories flood to the surface like cracked ice in a storm. Felled trees and burnt bridges, a harsh reminder of what was there.

And what, thanks to Nile’s recounting memories _was still out there._

_Breathing._

_Dying._

_Breathing._

_Dying._

Seeing the name branded to her skin, so perfectly rendered in the soft near script of black and underlined in soft red, the underline a tiny viper’s head, is a reminder. A knowledge of the love that hung in that endless watery depth and taunted them at every turn.

Almost too good to hope. Too strong to recall, to breath.

And with Andy’s mortal skin, something that would not fade. And remained, sharp and bright, asking them all to remember, remember, remember.

\--

She comes to bed late, but Nile’s still awake, watching some television program that appears to bore her, for the volume is muted the second Andy comes in and shuts the door.

“Does it help?” She asks, scooting over to the other side of the bed to give Andy room, watching her sit, “Seeing it?”

Nile had known about it earlier but didn’t deign to ask too many questions. Not wanting to pry, as she’d put it. But Andy believed she knew Nile had more to her thoughts and was keeping some level of respect. Much went unsaid, after all.

She knew a lot without asking.

“Yes.” Andy says, immediately, but there’s enough clip to her tone that she is met by a piercing, raised eyebrow. Nile had the most interesting way of looking interrogating effortlessly and without meaning to. So much did not fly by her.

“In a way.” Andy tries again, kicking her boots off and moving to sit against the headboard, knees to her chest. “We were together for a long time.”

“You don’t have to minimize.” Nile says, sitting up beside her. “A long time seems almost inadequate.”

“What else am I meant to say?”

“You still think you failed her.”

“How can I not?” Not even attempting to argue. “How can you love someone, be with them for so long, only for it all to slip away in seconds? I could have broken my wrist in those cuffs, put more money into the current radar I don’t-“

“You know.” Nile tries, “You never sound less of yourself than when you’re talking like that.” And there’s a thread of guilt there. “Before I mentioned the nightmares, you had made some peace.”

“Don’t go blaming yourself.” Andy snaps, without heat, “It was my fault thinking she’d finally been touched by the mercy of death.”

Of course, that was too good for them wasn’t it? Too merciful for whatever forsaken entity had given them this in the first place.

Bitterness ebbs into her gut, into her throat, and she swallows the bite of it before it can manifest further.

“When my dad died.” Nile says, “I thought I’d be sad forever. You know, you’re a kid. He’s never coming back home. I’d cry so long, days at a time. Everything seemed so dull. Nobody told me I’d be angry too. That when I finally couldn’t cry anymore, I’d go to the park, and see kids with their dads and want to rip them apart. How come they got that, and I didn’t? What made them so special? How come I deserved this, and they didn’t? Why’d God let them go but not us?”

She paused, “They told I’d move on. Adapt. He’s always with me, but they never told me it’d never stop hurting anyway. That yeah, I’d adapt, but adapt sometimes meant the reminders, that emptiness never went away. And that with that, I just had to cope.”

Andy stares at her wrist, but she’s listening. It wasn’t a newish statement and had been one of the driving reasons they were working on a way to get Nile back to Chicago to see her mother and brother.

“Nobody is wrong for moving on.” Nile said, finally, like she had to think at the best way to explain it. “You don’t love someone less just cos some things gotta be accepted.”

“Very wise.” And it isn’t supposed to sound callous, she just feels frayed. Her wrist aches from the gun, her back itches, and if Andy thought that she’d felt lost two years ago, it is nothing compared of now.

\--

Days later, the bandaging came off. And for the first time Andy was able to look to the tattoo in full.

She’d chosen dark black ink for Quỳnh’s name, in slanted cursive, going down her wrist, so that the ‘h’ stopped just before her hand turned to palm. Beneath, she’d had the name underlined in a red flourish, and the end of it, the end that hit the ‘h’ was the mouth of a viper, all the same colour, only the single eye and the tongue were a gold.

Over and over, her fingers stroked it. 

She let Joe gently caress it, Nicky too, and all of them had similar ideas without saying it. 

Was a tattoo honourable? Perhaps, perhaps not. 

Was it even a modicum of a good enough thing to remember her by? Impossible to be so. 

But it was something. 

It was something more than just a drowsy haze in her mind. A screaming echo in her ears every time she dared to let her thoughts linger too long. 

As the days carried on, Andy found she could not cease to stare at it. Often letting her fingers, or lips, touch the embedded ink. Both in the night before she drifted to sleep, or in morning when she felt the day calling. 

It soothed her, in a way. 

\-- 

_When Andromache was a child, her mother had once told her of beauty. While brushing her hair, braiding it into a plait, she’d told her of it._

_“Do you see the sky above, Andromache?” Adding a second line down her back. Her hair seemed to go forever. “See in it, those brilliant colours?”_

_“Bright.” Andromache said._

_“The sky is beautiful; the sky unites us.”_

_“For we all exist beneath this sky.” Andromache had echoed a statement her mother spoke to her and her sisters time and time again._

_“Yes.” And there, another line of her plait. “And the sea unites us from below.”_

_Andromache thought she understood beauty, having been told of it so oft._

_But Quỳnh had made her re-evaluate beauty. Expanded upon it._

_For she could believe that she never knew the truest beauty until she’d met her._

_At times, Andromache was shocked by the way that a single glance, a single look from Quỳnh_ _could force her off-kilter. Send her world sideways, bring her to a crushing sense of wanting and desiring, of loving and knowing._

_Away from her, Quỳnh with her bow, strung back, shoulders drawn to give Quỳnh her full and true height, bringing back that arrow, knowing even without seeing her face that the beautiful dark eyes were fixated upon her target. Controlled. Understanding. Everything in those seconds existed in Quỳnh’s power and precisely how she wanted them too._

_Skin so soft, but raw, when she removed the tunic, the pants, the coverings of cloth to her head. Slowly panting out Andromache’s name in a rhythm she’d never tire of. Over and over, tendril black hair covering their pillow, eyes shut in pure ecstasy, ‘again, Andromache, oh’, so much more. Pleasure so strong it could threaten to rip her asunder. Mouth, hands, ‘give me what you can, Andromache’._

_Glowing in the fire, shining in the moon._

_Slicing the neck of a man sneaking up upon them that Andromache did not hear fast enough, but that_ Quỳnh _did._

_Holding her in the dark, when those dreams shook her to the core, when sobs coated her chest and threaded in her ears. When cries of despair echoed in their small, shared space._

_Safe, my heart._

_When Andromache rested against her stomach, cradled as she came back to life._

_When she felt the silken glory of her tongue or the pierce of a blade._

_Not an inch of the world had missed their touch._

_Not a bit of the universe knew not their grasp._

_Every fibre of them was embedded in all the ground, the water, the heart of the universe._

_\--_

Something creaked.

A gun cocked.

Andy was sitting up, reaching for her own, before she was entirely conscious. There’s a shadow, Nile shuffling beside her.

This cabin was far from civilization. And she couldn’t hear an animal of any sort. She knew the shadow was Nicky, and that he was in their hallway. Joe pressed flat to the wall, covering them.

Nile slipped from the bed, into her slippers, Andy doing the same, motioning for Nile to get back.

She gets a slight slap to her wrist.

None of them let her go first now.

Nicky’s hand waves from behind himself, indicating the living room.

A light is flicked on in that room before either of them move, and they all hear it, in the same moment.

“Andromache?”

Impossible. Impossible. _Impossible._

Nicky’s head turns, slow, like he’s been struck down. Nile frowns, Joe slides in his position against the wall as though he’s lost his footing.

Slowly, bricks to her ankles, Andy moves down the hallway, past Joe and Nicky and into the living room.

No, not the living room, it’s the front door.

“Andromache.” Again, oh that voice, that voice! One she only heard in dreams and terrified memories, and even then, it’d been screaming her name. “May..I come in?”

What a question.

“Quỳnh”

“Please, Andromache.”

She was already inside, through their threshold. She’d shut the door behind them. “Quỳnh!”

\--

_Andromache’s head was going to split._

_Beside her, she could hear Quỳnh cursing statements much the same._

_“I have never” She moaned, shuffling on their bedroll, “Wanted to strangle someone within a dream as much as I do they!”_

_“Well,” Andromache groaned, rubbing her throat-it had been a throat slashing this time. “At least they stopped this time, maybe, it seems?”_

_“Impossible.” Quỳnh mumbled, pushing her fingers gingerly against her own stomach, “Impossible men.”_

_“Do they come in another style?” Andromache asked with a breathless laugh, laying back down once more._

_“No.” Quỳnh agrees, moving to roll atop her, yawning, even as she moved into a kiss, “But if we continually do not get a decent night’s rest, I will cross whatever ocean necessary and wring both their necks.”_

_“I look forward to it.” Andromache retorts, joining the kiss._

\--

In their little Northern cabin, time ceased to move.

The foursome stared at Quỳnh, not sure if they were seeing a ghost or not.

“Andromache.” That voice, again, now sounding near desperate. Enough so it snaps Andy out of the dense fugue state she’d been reduced to, to cross the living room in full until she’s mere inches from Quỳnh, wanting to go closer, but not daring it be so.

Would she attack her?

She’s anticipating of it. A hit, perhaps. A smack. To be raged at, screamed at. Demands of being abandoned, of being left alone. How she’d moved on. How she’d given up.

“You left me for dead!!” She imagines her shrieking. “You promised me the world and your love and when I was in the sea there was nothing of you!”

It never comes. And it’s Quỳnh who’s reached out first, her voice so small in Andy’s ears. Her fingers ice cold even through the gloves.

Or maybe Andy just imagines that.

Butter soft red leather, tender strong fingers.

Oh those fingers.

How they could crush and caress in equal measure.

How they’d excited Andy in both scenarios.

“I hate you.” Quỳnh _says,_ the first touches of her wrecked voice hitting Andy’s ears, a branding iron to the skin. “I hate you all. I had dreamed of this day when I found land again. When I could no longer taste salt and iron when I could breathe without the flood. I would take you apart, bury you, and dig you up to begin again.” Her voice trembles it comes out a rush.

“Each day I walked, or took an automobile? Or a plane, each day I told myself, it’ll be worth it when I can etch the life from your flesh.”

Andy swallows, desperate, _afraid._ She’d never, not once, been afraid of Quỳnh _, but_ she deserves this.

They all do.

“But..” Oh, she’s shaking now. Quỳnh’s hurting and that cannot do. Her love hurting this way, it cannot do. “I can’t.” Andy is uncertain if she’s angry about that or not. “Your face..your mortal, I can see it. And all of you..there is warmth, and I see you and all I want again is to feel safe, it..”

Babbling.

Quỳnh had never been one to babble.

“You never lost my love.” Andy is aware it’s not secure sounding, her fear and concern threaded into each letter that spills forth, “I tried, it wasn’t enough, ever, but we tried..so long.”

From behind, Andy’s aware that Nicky and Joe have moved closer-and more aware that they’re both crying. Oh, no sound is present, but she knows.

Quỳnh’s eyes widen, over and over, as though the light from the living room is finally penetrating further than her thoughts.

“Yusuf..Nicolò ..”

And from that, she focuses better, “Nile.”

Nile blinks, but does not seem too frightened, or startled. She makes no move to ask how Quỳnh knows her name.

What had originally moved in slow motion takes off in a rush. Andy isn’t sure if she pulls Quỳnh off of her feet or if Quỳnh just collapses into her chest. If her hands find her back or her hair first, if it’s she that makes the kiss come or Quỳnh desperately seeking content so long gone from her life. Air that doesn’t itch, breath that doesn’t cut into her flesh.

How they end up on their knees is impossible to determine, how their hug grow as Joe and Nicky join their pile, and where Quỳnh’s tears mingle with Andy’s and Nicky and Joe’s, none have any way of telling it be so.

Names, hands, a mass on the ground, and there’s so many apologies, so many. Andy hears her own, hears Nicky’s, hears Joe’s. And Quỳnh can only shake and tremble and try so hard to say it’s okay, try to accept the kisses from the other two and let Andy cradle her. But nothing is forthcoming that makes sense beyond finding their place, beyond centuries seeming to melt away into one grouping of ‘safe’ ‘home’ and ‘you’re back you’re back we failed we failed so sorry so sorry what could we ever do Quỳnh, Quỳnh, Quỳnh, please. Love you.’

\--

_“Shh,” Quỳnh holds a finger up to her lips, gently pulling Andromache away from where she’d been bringing their dinner to the fire. “Shh, come back.”_

_“What-“ Andromache follows without much protest, thinking that if she’s being yanked into the woods, this surely must be fun._

_“What is all this?” Andromache asks as they disappear, “What?”_

_“Look” Quỳnh crouches down, her tunic billowing slightly, “Look at them.”_

_“Hold still!” Yusuf is saying. “Keep squirming and I am going to slice you open from artery to gullet.”_

_“It is not my fault.” Andromache hears Nicolo protest, “That you decided the best position is me on the ground, between your legs, staring up into those gorgeous eyes, and pillowed against your chest now is it?”_

_“It is the best angle” Yusuf argues, resetting the straight razor against Nicolo’s throat, “Not my doing that you keep getting-ah!”_

_Andromache snickers, Yusuf bucking forward, because Nicolò had clearly done something more inventive with his fingers, and he’s giggling helplessly against Yusuf._

_“Behave.” Yusuf argues, “Or you can suffer half-bearded forever.”_

_Beside her, Quỳnh grins, moving her body until she can sit astride Andromache’s back, hands comfortably rested atop her head._

_“Nicolò !” Yusuf curses, far louder, shuddering, “Incorrigible, impossible, monstrous wandering fingers-“_

_“Mm, yes. Do keep at it, each epithet sounds cuter than the last.”_

_Andromache shuffled to give Quỳnh a good seat, smiling when she felt fingers in her hair, stifling her snort when she heard bitten off Arabic swearing from Yusuf, followed by shuffling, and another shout._

_“Nicolò , as appealing as this is, I can’t shave you like this.”_

_Andromache peaked her head up, and now Yusuf was just..laying atop Nicolò , who was flat to the ground and staring at him so adoringly she had to swallow._

_Did she look at Quỳnh like that? She imagined she did, even as the heat pooled in her stomach thinking on it._

_“Yes you can!” Quỳnh shouted from above her, amazingly not startling the two, even as two sets of eyes whirled to the forest, spotting them there. “Come on Yusuf, get more creative!”_

_Neither seemed embarrassed by her saying so, Nicolò in fact, seemed inspired, “There, you see?”_

_Yusuf growled endearingly, straight razor held aloft, not willing to back down from such an obvious challenge, bending only to snag Nicolò ’s mouth in a kiss. “If you insist it.”_

_\--_

It is Nile that helps them all off the floor, Nile that introduces herself to Quỳnh with only a slight awkwardness. Nile that encourages them all to sit on the couch, Andy and Quỳnh together in the middle, Nicky and Joe flanking them on either side. With Nicky alongside Quỳnh and Joe Andy.

So much to say.

So much to explain.

So much to try and understand.

Amidst all the shuffling, Quỳnh noticed the tattoo, and she gasps before anyone can stop to explain. Picking up Andy’s wrist and studying the ink there, fingers boldly running across it, over and over, tracing each individual letter of her own name. Again, and again, and again.

“Andromache..when?”

“Just over a week ago.” Andy swallows, “I I..only wanted. I figured, well..it cannot fade.”

She has no real way to explain it. Even as she feels, almost, that maybe it had brought Quỳnh back, even though there was no way that could be true.

“You..never.”

“No, of course n-“ Andy almost says, but tries again. “Never Quỳnh, never, none of us.”

“Andromache..”

Across from them, Nile is watching. Andy can feel her watching, and Andy has no clear memory of what happens after, for they’re all crying again, and it seems as though it’ll never stop.

\--

It takes time, so much time, after that.

Quỳnh spends the next few days with them adapting. She and Nile talk for hours, of the dreams, of Nile, of endless encouragements from Quỳnh for Nile to absolutely return to Chicago, to make that work no matter what.

She tends to speak slowly, like she can’t believe entirely that she’s on ground level again. She tells them how she quickly discovered something called ‘dry shampoo’ in a store after she’d been back on land for well over a month (in her estimation), and that it had saved her when it was just too difficult to face a shower.

“It has improved,” Quỳnh said, when she noticed Andy’s face, “But sometimes..well it helps that it’s warm water, and not salty.”

Nicky had cried for the entire day after Quỳnh arrived. Andy remembers how close they’d been, and each time he touched her, he seemed afraid she was a dream about to disintegrate before his eyes.

Only when she was holding him, did he seem to quiet.

Joe paced. Joe paced and cried nearly as much as his husband but seemed more assured by her touch. Even as Andy caught him clinging to Nicky like some rug had been pulled out from under them late one-night mid-week.

Quỳnh had been trying to rebuild her life, and while she knew of Booker, she said nothing of it.

If nothing else, that bridge could come in time. Andy wanted this to be about Quỳnh.

\--

“Andromache?”

It’s late, everyone’s gone to bed, and Quỳnh had fallen asleep on the couch and Andy was so scared to disturb her.

Of course, she stands immediately, turning, “Quỳnh?”

Quỳnh takes her hand, draws it to her chest, “Could you draw me a bath?” The implication hangs, before she clarifies, “Us?”

Andy does not ask Quỳnh if she is sure, she’d never have asked otherwise. Instead bowing her head, until she can draw Quỳnh into herself. “Of course.”

The cabins tub is not that massive, but Andy knows they’ll fit no problem. She makes the temperature as hot as they both can stand it, and Quỳnh fumbles with her shirt as she tries to undress. Andy’s unsure if she feels the same tentative warmth, desire and concern.

She knows that break of five hundred years cannot be mended over night. Knows that no amount of missing Quỳnh could make that any different. Could just balm or heal. But there’s a tenderness when Quỳnh watches her. An expression Andy knew well. One that warms her to the core, even as she steps into the tub and encourages Quỳnh to follow.

Quỳnh frowns at the bullet scar on Andy’s stomach, standing outside of the tub, Andy’s mortality crushing in on them in a single breath.

“I know..but not right now, Quỳnh.” Andy says, taking her hand, “You, this is about you, okay?”

Quỳnh looks so like herself from 500 years ago. So familiar it was as if they’d never been apart. And Quỳnh shakes her head, even as she steps into the tub, swallowing a gasp and trying to stay grounded.

“And you, dismissing yourself, your pain, never was something I was fond of, Andromache.”

Oh, how familiar! How bitingly, achingly familiar.

“Is it warm?” Andy says, instead.

“Yes.” Quỳnh nods, letting Andy carefully help them down. It would be easier, if Quỳnh’s back was to Andy, but they both seem to want the same of facing one another, and Quỳnh shudders the further and further she sinks into the water.

“It’s okay.” Andy promises, “You’re okay, not too much water.”

“No.” Quỳnh says, “I thought of it, all the time. In those quick moments where I was dreadfully conscious and alive, I thought of all those cutting, nasty things I could say. How I would make you pay.”

Andy swallows, hands down along her sides, until Quỳnh picks them back up, forces them to her own back and waist. “I still do..I have a list. I am still angry. So angry, but Andromache, seeing you all again. Feeling that pain. And Nile, her own. I could see you in her dreams, and that suffering.”

“Doesn’t make it better. Does not change the fact that I-“

Quỳnh winds her arms around her then, tight, pulling Andy in, her fingers tug the hair at the back of her neck enough so that it nearly hurts. “Do not.” And it’s a threat, Andy knows that it is a threat, “Not now, please.” Desperation, pain. Such pain. Endless pain. “There..Andromache, hold me.”

Quỳnh’s shaking again, Andy cannot stomach it. Oh she hopes she’s not cold. The water’s burning enough to turn their skin red, to steam around them. Quỳnh trembling against her chest, even as she brings down Andy’s head for kisses, for touches. Sinks into her grip.

“Andromache,”

“Quỳnh” Her lips are warmer now than the water, holding Quỳnh even closer, though doing so is near improbable. “Quỳnh, Quỳnh.”

In the water, Andy carefully washes Quỳnh’s hair while they sit and exchange the kisses, while they touch, and soap mingles and Quỳnh relaxes over and over into Andy.

At some point, Quỳnh reaches down while Andy soaps up her chest and studies the tattoo. It had been fascinating her, and Andy knew she could not stop staring at it. And is not shocked, even as the air catches in her chest and strangles her ribs, when Quỳnh brings her mouth to it. To kiss along the letters.

They don’t know what to do, or what they’re doing. And eventually, there’s more to face. More to accomplish, more to believe.

But for now, as Andy strokes her fingers along Quỳnh’s cheek, down her neck, holds her in the shallow water while Quỳnh gives delicate kisses to the tattoo, they can rest.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year's Eve all!
> 
> Yes, the title is kinda lame. I had originally just wanted to call it 'tattoo' but figured that was not a great title for a fic. So I gave it a bit of extension.
> 
> I had started this a different way originally, but liked this a lot better. It is Andy POV and I thought a reunion fic was a good way to kind of wrap up the year, you could say.
> 
> As always, self beta'd. 
> 
> Feel free to find me on [Tumblr](https://coffeebeannate.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
